Welcome to ‘Dear Laura’ - a monthly column where I fashion myself as an agony aunt and answer the questions that readers submit. If you’d like to send in a question for me to answer next month, you can submit it here.
I’m happy to answer Qs about anti-diet nutrition, developing a more peaceful relationship to food and weight-inclusive health, annoying diet trends and news stories, body image challenges, and, of course, challenges with feeding your kiddos. Please give as much detail as you’re comfortable with and let me know if you’d like me to include your name or keep it anon.
Please remember that these answers are for educational purposes only and are not a substitute for medical or nutritional advice; please speak to your GP or a qualified nutrition professional if you need further support.
I recently saw a well-known nutritionist talking online about how her child was having chocolate spread on toast, with chocolate milk, at the school breakfast club. Said nutritionist had emailed the school with her concerns over this and now the school have removed the chocolate spread and milk from breakfast club.
I have a couple of questions about this all: should we stress about our kids eating chocolate spread/milk for breakfast? Is emailing the school to remove the offending items the answer to the problem? And how does this all work together if we’re trying to promote a healthy relationship with food for our kids?
Ok so. I got a whole bunch of texts and DMs about this uh, debacle? Seems like a lot of you had feelings about this one, so let’s break it down.
Here’s the deal: the nutritionist the question refers to discovered that her younger child (age ~5) was having chocolate spread and, sometimes chocolate milk, at breakfast club. For those of you who aren’t au fait with the UK school system, breakfast club is less John Hughes and more care that extends beyond the usual school hours of 9:00-15:30. Many working parents rely on breakfast clubs – which usually start at 7:30/8:00am – as it gives them time to commute to offices or wherever they work. And, as the name suggests, they offer kids breakfast so that you have one less thing to worry about. This is typically a paid-for service, but some qualifying schools in ‘disadvantaged areas’ may provide free breakfast clubs.
We don’t know how many times a week this kid was attending breakfast club, but regardless, Nutrition Mum decided to have a chat with her, and they decided that she wouldn’t choose the chocolate spread every day. Apparently this was all fine until one day kiddo had a ‘real strop’ about it.
So, Nutrition Mum emailed the school with her concerns and got the chocolate milk and chocolate spread removed from the breakfast club.
Look, I’ll just say it. I don’t think this was the right move. Not for the individual child, nor at the whole school level.
